Manually Install Official Android 9.0 Pie on Essential Phone

Google officially released the new Android 9.0 Pie software and the first roll outs should embrace the Pixel devices anytime now. Well, among Google’s own smartphones the same stock Android OS will be received on several other handsets including the Essential Phone. And in that respect we now have a dedicated update tutorial for you – just read and follow the guidelines explained below and learn how to manually install the official Android 9.0 Pie firmware on your own Essential Phone.

The Android P software should be received automatically on your device – the OTA is already available for the Essential Phone, thus the Android notification should be spotted directly on your phone. However, you won’t be able to apply the OTA if you replaced the stock Android OS with a custom ROM firmware (such as Lineage OS, AOKP or Paranoid Android) or if you enabled root access on your device. In those situations a manual process should be followed instead – and that’s when the steps from below will become more than useful.

This manual update operation will be also useful for refreshing the default Android system – for example if you will experience software related issues on your Essential Phone you can choose to manually reinstall the Android 9.0 Pie system in order to get rid of the malfunctions that were causing the problems.

And, as you can tell, this manual update solution can help you skip the OTA-wait: as we all know, usually OTAs are offered gradually, or in phases meaning that some users can receive the Android notification sooner than others.

This update operation implies in flashing a Fastboot patch – you are going to apply the official Android 9.0 Pie package that’s available for your Essential Phone. So, you won’t have to use third party apps or other risky programs for being able to resume the flashing procedure. However, for this tutorial to work you will need to use a phone that runs on an unlocked bootloader. Therefore, before doing anything else, choose to unlock your Essential Phone bootloader – keep in mind that this additional operation might void your phone’s warranty.

Before choosing to set up the Android P firmware on your Essential Phone you should backup your personal data, info, accounts and files. Don’t worry, your data should be in safe hands during the update process, but since we’re talking about sensible files, the best is to be precautious. A general backup can be easily performed in different ways: by using built-in cloud storage platforms, by syncing certain packages with your Google Account or by downloading dedicated and already tested backup and restore apps from Google Play.

On your phone the Developer Option feature must be enabled – navigate towards About Phone and tap repeatedly on Built Number, for 7 or 10 times, until the ‘you are a developer’ message shows up. Then, access Developer Options by going to Menu and General Settings; from there check the ‘USB Debugging’ option.

As always, before deciding to apply a new major system update, verify the power that’s left on your Essential Phone. If the power that’s left is lower than 50%, don’t go any further without charging your device first. If the charging process isn’t applied your phone can get turned off in the middle of the flashing operation and in that particular situation you can end up in soft-bricking your Android based device – a sudden shut down can cause different malfunctions so try to avoid such unpleasant situations as much as possible.

How to Manually Install Official Android 9.0 Pie on Essential Phone

From Essential’s website read the alerts and just follow on-screen prompts for being able to download the official Android 9.0 Pie firmware that’s available for your Essential Phone.

So, save the Fastboot ROM on your computer – you can place it on desktop, where you need to unzip it.

Now, access the resulted folder from your desktop.

In the meanwhile, reboot your Android device into bootloader mode and connect your smartphone with your computer – just plug in the USB cable in that respect.

Now, from the folder where you unzipped the Fastboot ROM package, open a command prompt window: press and hold the Shift keyboard key and right click on any blank space; then, from the options displayed choose ‘open command prompt window here’.

In this cmd window type ‘flashall.bat’ and press Enter.

That should be all, the update should be automatically installed on your phone.

Just wait while this operation is completed.

When done, close the cmd window and unplug the USB cable. Also, reboot your Essential Phone.

Done.

If after completing the steps explained above your device gets stuck in a boot loop you need to follow: reboot your Android smartphone in recovery mode; in recovery, use the Volume rocker keys in order to scroll up and down between options and the Power button to select; then, from recovery mode choose to make a hard reset and to clear app data cache – pick the following options: ‘wipe data factory reset’ followed by ‘wipe dalvik cache’; in the end, go to main menu of recovery and select ‘reboot system now’.

Perfect; that’s how you can manually install the new Android 9.0 Pie official update on your Essential Phone. Don’t forget to share your update experience with us and with the other users who might want to use this tutorial – you can use the comments field from below in order to quickly get in touch with us. Also, tell us how the new Android UI is running on your smartphone, share your experience related with the new Android P features and do tell if there are lags, bugs or any other software related issues.